Chapter 1 #2
When I opened my eyes, I was staring into two utterly captivating irises inches before my face. Thick rings of rich, vibrant violets and purples formed the edges, fading into deep, speckled gold toward each pupil. At some point, she’d come to sit so straight and close that our lips nearly touched.
With all of those wounds, that shouldn’t be possible.
“What…what are you?” I asked, sounding small and winded like the young child Merelda had found on the village paths. Not that I cared. Now wasn’t the time for pride. If this woman, or whatever she was, wanted me to kiss the ground, sing a song, and beg for my life, I’d eagerly do so.
Those irises shimmered with gold and then silver as they bore into my own eyes, and I couldn’t have pulled my gaze away if I wanted to.
I thought I wanted to, but then I didn’t.
Not when the colors were dancing so prettily.
Dancing, dancing, dancing, morphing into fingers, long knuckled fingers…
no, knobby tree roots, roots that kept growing—nothing but light…
bright light, brighter than anything I’d ever seen in my life, everywhere and within me, warm and soft on the inside.
I was floating, limbs free, floating through the bright light that felt like sunshine, home, and something else I couldn’t place.
But something changed, and it began to be too bright.
Too much light. It burned. It seared me from the inside out, like pain I’d never known before, and I opened my mouth to scream.
The manacles slipped from my arms as my eyelids slammed shut, and I was no longer floating but falling over onto the cold, hard ground. My head slammed into a tree root.
Instantly, my eyes were open and I was on my feet. Unsheathing the dagger from my thigh, I took a readied stance, calling on every skill Marsik had taught me. I’d deflect her strike with a forearm, slash out with the knife, and then use my legs because they were the strongest weapon I had.
But she was gone.
The ground before me was empty.
No woman. No violet fabric. No black blood.
I whirled around, expecting those strange irises to be far too close again, but I was alone. “But how…?”
I spun again and then two more times after that, searching for some sign of the woman or that ancient voice. Neither were there.
A gentle, cool breeze brushed my skin, and I looked up to see the tree branches softly swaying. Relief began to spread at the return of clean air and the departure of that horrible stench. Thank the Domus, I could breathe again.
I gulped the fresh air in, looking again at the ground where the woman with the multicolored eyes had been.
It could…it could have been a dream. Or perhaps I was too hungry and thirsty, and I was losing my mind.
Both were unlikely explanations, but the thought that this dying, bleeding woman who’d messed with my head had simply vanished into thin air was even more unbelievable.
That could only happen with something like magic, and magic did not exist in the six Territories.
All that did exist was the harsh reality of natural life.
That and the Domus, which was the closest thing to magic we had.
With my free hand, I pinched my arm through the thick tunic.
Nothing changed.
“You’re imagining things, then,” I said out loud, shaking my head, even though my arms still ached where her grip had been.
I reached for the flask that hung from a hoop in my trousers and took a slow pull of water.
Food would only come once I returned home, and after the last few minutes, I was ready to leave my trapping for tomorrow.
I would eat and sleep, forget this happened, and ask Marsik for more fighting lessons.
A chorus of snapping sticks reached my ears, and for the second time in a row, my heartbeat jolted into a racing tempo. Legs stopping, I pivoted toward the sound.
Three figures emerged from behind thin trees, their clothing looking like the tree trunks themselves.
If not for the warning sound, my eyes would have believed they were extensions of the wood.
Though they were fifty paces away, it was clear they were huge, bigger than anyone in the village and the Princeps himself, cloaked from their heads to their feet in a brown, patterned fabric that blended with the bark.
Only the skin of their noses and eyes was visible, and even that was smeared with mud.
Soldiers. Hunters, maybe. Nothing I recognized or wanted to know. Nothing that should be out here in the woods.
Things had just gone from bad to terrible.
A thick, braided rope hung from the middle figure’s grip. Thin ropes were better for trapping. These men weren’t here to catch animals. My hand shook where it gripped my own knife.
This couldn’t be happening.
I came to the woods and trapped birds and small animals, then returned home to cook, chop and sell firewood, sleep, and wake up with the sunrise to do it all again.
I ducked my head and stayed far away from trouble.
The greatest danger I faced was starvation or punishment for not following the rules, and until today, I always followed those damn rules.
“Her eyes,” the one on the left said, the deep, guttural tone surprising me in its roughness.
His friends nodded.
My eyes? They were brown and dull, like most. But something told me voicing that fact would not change the intent in the men’s faces. The intent to capture or kill, which was made clear by their deliberate advance and the coarse rope.
It’s just a dream you have yet to wake from.
But my instincts didn’t believe that. So finally, I ran.